


There & Back Again

by BigScaryDinos



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, Blow Jobs, Cutting, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Overdosing, Self-Harm, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, there's a little fluff because Josh is an actual angel I think, this gets a bit dark fast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-14 23:51:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8033860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigScaryDinos/pseuds/BigScaryDinos
Summary: Some people would think those thoughts are suicidal but they’re not. They are nothing but practical. It’s this practicality that makes him really grounded. It makes him feel like he’s got something under control even if it’s just his existence - or lack thereof. 
   Also known as: five times TyJo wanted to commit and that one time that he didn't. Ty's got some thoughts, Josh is around to stop them. 5+1 style.





	1. 10/05/2011

**Author's Note:**

> Just a warning all of these dates are just pulled out of my ass, so if they don't match up exactly to what was going on / hair color / actual mentioned tour dates I apologize. Just roll with this one. Also if you enjoy listening to music here's a playlist of some of the songs I listened to while writing this : http://8tracks.com/bigscarydinos/where-a-heart-should-live

 

 

Tyler is sitting at his desk, thinking about things. Which is never good - the things he’s thinking about that is. Or thinking in general. Thinking at all usually ends up with his head sputtering out on him. It seems like lately his mind has been stuck in this loop,  running around in circles madly until he wants to implode just to end the noise inside him. He sorta feels like collapsing into a pile of skin. He wants to take a cheap lighter and melt down everything about himself until he’s the most basic he can be and then he can sort through his life and put himself together one more time. For keeps this time. Maybe. It depends on if he can get all the numbers to add up in his mind. He's never been the best at math.

 

There are just some people who probably shouldn’t live. No amount of number crunching makes them into a real person with real feelings and functioning dopamine receptors. Or maybe it’s the serotonin. There it goes again, his mind  - running away like a dog without a leash after a speeding car. If he tries to stop it he gets run over by the car so he doesn't even try anymore. Instead he sits back praying that the dog will come back when it gets tired.

 

As suddenly as if he just blinked his eyes its four ten in the morning and he’s wondering what life would be like if everything just stopped. Since he can’t really melt and remold this would be more like a hard reset. Go back to factory mode. Ground zero. _Have you tried turning it off and on again?_   Some people would think those thoughts are suicidal but they’re not. They are nothing but practical. It’s this practicality that makes him really grounded. It makes him feel like he’s got something under control even if it’s just his existence - or lack thereof.

 

How the letter opener gets into his hands is anybody’s guess. Sometimes he just blacks out for a few moments. It used to scare him until he stopped being scared by much of anything.

 

This letter opener is sharp. Almost like a knife, if you squint.  He used to have a pocketknife but that disappeared from his room after an ER visit four months ago. Now all he has is this cheap piece of metal from some school trip. The handle has this stupid plaster mold of a barrel going over a waterfall on it. _Wish you were here! Niagara Falls!_ Maybe that wouldn’t be too bad; just sitting in the barrel and going over the water and then flying and not knowing anything.

 

It’s four twenty seven when he tugs down his pants just to try one line across his thigh. Just curious to see if it would even work and he’s only somewhat surprised to see it does. A thin uneven red line swells up across his leg. His hand twitched halfway through and he wishes he could just _fucking stop that already_ _._ Hard reset, he thinks. He has his breathing under control for the first time since sometime around midnight. His mind is clear again. It’s calming, this whole act of rebelling against himself.

 

Okay, this would work then. This would do it. And he thinks for a few more minutes on slitting his wrists with this tacky piece of shit in his hand. He wants to laugh and tries to but it comes out wrong on his tongue. It sounds more like a sob - but it can’t be right. So he swallows the rest down and tugs his pants back up. He doesn’t think of himself dying exactly, but he doesn’t want whoever that gets to _find_ him to see him with his jeans around his knees and this plaster shit in his hands. He thinks of Zack, then his mom, finally his dad. They’d think _Wow - he’s a sick one._ Here comes that laugh again. He’s scared of the sound. He doesn’t let it get to his lips. He wonders if his mom kept copies of the checks from his therapy. She would be the kind of person to ask for a refund.

 

He’s got the letter opener to his arm and he’s drawing this line down it lightly first. To feel it, at least trying to. Then he presses half an inch deeper and there’s the burn he knows. A tingle in his fingers while he flexes. It works perfectly, a bead of red comes to the surface, it almost makes him dizzy.

 

Then his phone vibrates and the OCD inside of him will not let him ignore it, so he looks. It’s from Josh. Of course.

 

_Hey, I know it’s late  - are you still up._

 

He can ignore it. Ignore Josh altogether. His OCD satisfied at least with the knowledge that he checked. He knows what the message says. He focuses on himself again then the phone vibrates again.

 

_LOL. JK. I know you’re up._

 

Then it’s not stopping, the phone is vibrating endlessly. Josh’s ringtone starts playing far too loudly in the quiet of his room. This month it’s _i_ _t aint easy being green_ because Joshua had to dye his hair Kermit the frog green. And there comes that sound again. Not even attempting to be a laugh this time - just a sob.  He doesn’t trust his mouth. He doesn’t trust himself. He shuts his mouth and his eyes and trusts his hands instead.

 

He picks up the phone. He doesn’t even need to say hello.

 

“Hey, listen - I was just driving back from this show in Pittsburgh and I have some ideas. Like real ideas. How about ski masks?” Josh’s words are coming out fast. He has two modes - non talkative and nonstop, there is no in between.

 

“Yeah, that might work.” Tyler’s distracted though, trying to refocus with his eyes open. Two drops of red make a slow trail down his forearm. He watches them and holds his breath. Josh breathes enough for the two of them, and he just keeps bringing him back. Every time he opens his mouth Tyler can see Josh in his mind - sitting in the car, the window rolled halfway down, his hair wild and as green as mid summer grass. His eyes are red because he’s exhausted but he has to get home or his parents will kill him because they didn’t even know he was gone in the first place. He’s only with his parents because his apartment is being fumigated for two weeks. While he’s there he has to listen to the rules. He hears something pop in the background and knows as surely as he knows his own name that this is Josh’s fourth can of Mountain Dew and that Josh is going to need to take a pitstop to pee in less than 30 minutes.

 

He’s thinking about Josh so intently he doesn’t even know when he put the letter opener back on his desk. Has no idea when he rolled down his sleeves and propped his legs up on the desk instead. Has no idea when he kicked back, leaning backwards and looking up at the ceiling instead of at his thin slice on his arm. Has no idea why Josh decided to call him at four am.

 

“I was thinking, I have work in like five hours - I’m not getting to sleep. I’m still not home, like twenty minutes away. I’m by the Costco so do you wanna meet me at my house and we can play Smash?”  This time Tyler actually almost smiles. He starts to get up from his seat, tugging on a jacket.

 

“Sure Josh. I’ll meet you there.”


	2. 05/12/2012

 

When Tyler was twelve and a half he tried to kill himself. Not really a real attempt, like an honest to god attempt. It was more of an accidental attempt. Even still with all the promises that it had all been a mistake it was still the kind of attempt that made his parents shake their heads and then he had to go to a therapist when he was thirteen where he learned a lot about himself anyway because that was the kind of thing his parents thought would be for the best. 

 

The attempt itself was just an overdose which wasn’t even a real overdose. More like a “I’m twelve and I haven’t slept in well over forty three hours and I just want to go to sleep for a tiny bit” kind of attempt. It did lead to an accidental almost drowning so Tyler could understand the concern, but he reassured everyone his intentions had been honestly just to get some sleep and wake up eventually. He knew where his mother’s sleeping pills where because he’d been stealing two at a time from her for months. Then two didn’t work anymore, when he tried four it didn’t hit him either. This was more of a ten pill problem. It’s not his fault he decided to take ten pills and then go lay out on a raft in the pool. It was only accidental that he finally fell asleep, lulled by the lapping water, medication, and sun only to flip his raft over. His sister pulled him out of the pool and even then he had no idea what was going on. His parents said it was something deeper than just that though, so he went off twice a week to see a therapist two hours away from his hometown because his parents cared about his mental health, but they also cared about their oldest son not looking like a mental case to all of their friends. 

 

His therapist though, she helped him learn a whole metric ton about himself. He was discovering he had this other person inside him. Other kids had imaginary friends who went away when they got to second grade but his stuck inside him. This other kid, this one who took up residence inside him, looked just like him but all dark and covered in shadows with red eyes and a terrifying voice. Sometimes he would live in his head, other times his chest, sometimes his stomach, sometimes his throat. His therapist though, she told him this was fine, this was just a case of DID. Which could be treated as long as he wanted to fight it.  There was also anxiety, bipolar depression, a touch of OCD, and chronic heartburn. 

 

He was mostly worried about the heartburn. Did this mean he had to stop eating Taco Bell? She just laughed and shook her head and said,  _ well no, not exactly. Now let’s work on that OCD a little more . _ And Tyler would just think of all the things he had to do in his mind to make himself function and he wondered if needing to really touch the bottom of his shoes seventeen times before he put them on wasn’t a normal thing to do. Didn't every kid go through something like this?   


 

The other piece of information he was given was what this person inside him told him, these were called intrusive thoughts.  It would be best if he ignored the intrusive thoughts, as they were mostly not ever going to be helpful. But there was that damn touch of OCD he had to fight of course.

 

So all these years later he would have them at all times, all hours of the day, any time, any place, anything. Nothing was safe from this voice inside him demanding him to do things. Which ranged from mundane to life changing. 

 

He would be brushing his teeth when it screamed  _ you missed your left bottom molar .  _ He would jerk his hand up in surprise and he would peer into his open foamy mouth and damned if  _ it  _ wasn’t right. Yet no matter how much he scrubbed at that one tooth this voice that was like his coming from this person who was like him, it kept it up until his mouth was bleeding. Then the voice would laugh, and shut up and he could finally start spitting out the bloody toothpaste mess inside his mouth. 

 

He would be walking down the street and it would scream  _ turn left .  _ Until he did, until he turned left and walk wherever his mind demanded. If it was in front of traffic or not  wasn’t really his problem as long as he could get this second Tyler to stop yelling inside his head. Sometimes it was like he wasn’t even in control at all. Sometimes things just happened. Sometimes things would get dark and he'd be on the sidewalk and when he figured out he was back inside his head he'd be in the center of the road with terrible whispers fading away inside his mind.   


 

His thirteen year old self had been almost promised by his therapist that one day he would barely even hear this person in his head, but now, years later it was all a lie. This person had grown with him, instead of taking up a tiny space inside of him, it grew until it was all of him, the spaces between his ribs, the air inside his lungs, the gaps between his bones. This thing grew up too, and grew a bigger voice, brighter eyes, a personality all its own. And of course if it’s a second person it needs a name. Tyler II wouldn’t do. It needed to be itself, because it wasn’t Tyler anymore. Blurry seemed fine enough, because it was all the smudged darkened edges that lived inside him.  That was the problem though, if it lived in him, it could take him too. 

 

Today was a good day, actually a really good day. Everything was going better than it should have been, it had been a good week actually. Which should have been the first sign that it was about time for something to happen. Nobody inside him was speaking much. Which meant it was due for quite the speech. 

 

They went on stage on time, and everything went perfectly. Until Car Radio came on. Then his mind started screaming louder than it had in months. 

 

_ You need to climb .  _ He wanted to ask why but there was no reasoning with himself. Was no thought process, no rationalization. It was just do, or don’t, and don’t carried a lot of weight behind it. Don’t wasn’t really a valid option. Don't mostly lead to blackouts. This was not the place to wage a war.   


 

He did fight it as best he could but it distracted him, ruined him, tore him down until he didn’t think he could keep going. Nothing made sense because it was like the world went dark. His lungs were heavy, his heart didn’t want to beat anymore everything ached with his mind raging inside his skull. 

 

_Climb. It’ll make you feel better. I promise. Pinky promise. Cross my heart. Hope to die._

 

That’s when he forgot all the words, he forgot the next part of a song he’d been singing for so long. If asked he couldn’t even tell you his name, all he knew was that he had to get up somewhere. He had to satisfy this part of himself that wanted him elevated. So he did. 

 

He warped the microphone around his neck and started on the scaffolding to stage left because he didn’t want to be climbing on top of Josh, who seemed undisturbed by this pause in singing. He just kept drumming, his head bobbing to his own beat. He’s playing like this was all planned, he’s just going on and wailing and letting the world look at him even though Tyler knows he hates it. Josh just acts like nothing is wrong. Maybe nothing is wrong. It’s too early to tell. There’s security telling him this isn’t safe, telling him to get down, telling him to stop. All he can really hear though is the drums and the words in his head. Once he gets to the top he has no idea what he’s going to do. He just needs to get higher.

 

So when he gets to the top of the scaffolding he’s just standing there, looking down blankly like he doesn’t know where he is - which isn’t exactly a lie.  It’s mostly true. He has no clue what he’s doing up here, in the middle of Car Radio when he should be belting out his lungs to these people who came to see it. Instead he’s got the mic wrapped around his neck and he’s watching these people jump and scream and cry  _ all _ _the way down there_. It’s a lot higher than he thought it would be, but then again he didn’t think, did he? He just acted, because somebody told him too. 

 

The voice is silent for one moment. Tyler wants to think about how he’s going to get down when it starts a new command in it’s terrifying voice. 

 

_ Jump .  _

 

And for a second Tyler fights it.  He honestly digs his heels into the ground, he grimaces. No. He will not jump. Not here, not now. It won’t happen. But he’s the minority vote in his own body and as much as he wants to will himself back down the way he came up his feet take a half step towards the edge of the beam he’s standing on. Half an inch and he’ll fall and hey, is it really that bad anyway?  _J ust jump, give them a show. _ Hard to fight with that logic. It’s pretty solid especially when the only word he can hear is  _ Jump .  _ He looks down and thinks that it’s most definitely death jumping distance. Nobody is going to catch him, he doesn’t want people to catch him. This is way too high up for them to save him, but he doesn’t want it anyway. So he plans his spot, just in case somebody thinks this is part of the show. There it is - side stage. A spot where there’s this fresh looking grass and nobody standing. Not even guards. He’s bending his knees, listening to the joints pop. Now he’s just wondering if he can do a backflip when his eyes catch hold of Joshua. 

 

All dark haired and wide eyed and happy. He’s got this big smile on his face and he’s looking up right at Tyler. It’s like the two sets of eyes connect. He’s still playing, but he’s waiting too. Waiting to see what amazing thing Tyler will do and his mind goes blank and then he realizes that the urge to jump is gone. It’s vanished like smoke. He doesn’t want to jump anymore, he just wants to climb back down and go backstage and figure out how to breath again. He wants to sit down on the pavement by the van and drink some water and put his head in his hands and concentrate. But everybody is here for him and he’s on top of the world and Josh is waiting for him. Josh is waiting. Josh.   


 

So he finishes the song the only way he knows how anymore - from what feels like a thousand feet above the Earth by screaming his heart out even though the security cut the power to the microphone a while ago.   



	3. 12/04/2015

 

Tyler doesn’t often wake up in a strange bed with his head feeling like it’s been stuffed with cotton. So when he opens his eyes to see unfamiliar surroundings feeling like he's been lobotomized he can’t help but think _What the hell is this?_

 

He makes a timeline in his mind as best he can from the safety of the stranger's bed. Yesterday was what? Thursday, maybe. He was on a bus for sure. He remembers last night laying in his bunk, listening to some kind of white noise music as his eyes slip shut. The road moved under him. He traveled on. This is a bedroom. In a house. The only movement is him. He's not confident last night happened how he thinks it does. He's missing the corner pieces of his puzzle.

 

Questions flood his mind in mass. Is it actually Friday, maybe it’s not, is it December or November? Where’s Josh. Where’s Jenna. She wasn’t on the bus last he knew, but that means nothing now.  The sheets that surround him feel too soft, look too blue. They are not his, not Jenna’s. He knows Josh’s bedroom enough to know these aren't his either. Hotel. He makes a grab for the idea like a drowning man with a life preserver. Howard Johnson? Motel six? Hilton maybe.

 

The thought of not knowing for certain terrifies him to the point of rigidity, then action. He springs up, feeling any blood in his head leave and pool somewhere the feels like it's outside of his body. Dizzy and suddenly nauseous he tries to look around the room. In the blurs he can already tell that this room is not a hotel, far too lived in. Nice, cozy, this _belongs_ to somebody. There are clothes that do not belong to him in a small neat lump on a chair by the closet. There are photos with strangers inside the frames. There are soft looking beige curtains that belong to somebody he’s never met on the windows. His clothes are in a pile on the floor and they look dirty. They look well wore with holes and sweat stains and rips in the pants. The socks don’t have elastic. Small rusty blood stains dot the collar of his shirt. They have no place in this house of pale colors and flowing fabrics. How did he get here. Panic sits inside his stomach like a hard pit while his mind is quieted.

 

He gets out of bed cautiously like he can disturb the environment by existing. His being here throws a wrench into some cosmic balance. Somewhere there is an Earthquake in a third world country. He feels a bit disgusting. More than a bit if he’s letting himself be honest. He wrings his hands together noting the black paint still stuck in the lines of his palms. He picks at it nervously before stopping - he’s going to get it all over the cream colored carpet. He gets on his knees trying to pick up the flecks. His fingerprints leave dirty shadows instead. He’s sweating and doesn’t know why and the taste of copper fills his throat. Terror that flashes bright red clouds his eyes. He feels ripped apart from the inside out. He’s back on the bed, sitting, picking at a stray string attached to his boxers. He’s trying to examine the cracks in his nails, the way his mouth tastes like burnt toast. Clutching at his abdomen trying to hold himself together and force his mind backwards. His tongue is swollen inside his mouth and doesn't know why.

 

He remembers things a little at a time. The first thing he remembers is plastic tubes. One long snake of a tube all the way down his throat. A creature trying to suck out his organs through it's hollow mouth, it's going to eat him inside first. His stomach rolls around inside him.  He remembers gagging. He can feel tears on his cheeks that aren't there anymore. He wants to throw up but there’s nothing inside him left to get out. He’s as hollow as he will ever be.He swipes a thumb at his face just to make sure it's still dry.

 

He remembers there was a show last night, he’s not sure about the when, or where. He knows from the clothes and the paint and something inside him still vibrating like a taut guitar string. It’s the post show feeling. It was a good one, he thinks, trying to pick out one moment in his mind but everything runs together to make a blur of drums, faces, noises. There’s something else there too, this deep sadness that lives under the colors. The black that needs to surround neon to make it brighter. 

 

The date is right, he  knows suddenly. It was just his birthday, that’s the problem. Part of it at least.  Birthdays get him into this weird mental space that very little can pull him out of. There’s other factors of course, no depression is truly single faceted. Seasons. Homesick. More things than he can ever sort through. He’s pulling open dresser drawers, looking under the bed. Looking for answers to where he is now as he tries to walk through last night. His bare knees rub against the carpet until they are red as he searches for answers inside this room.

 

After the show he was on the bus, he thinks as his fingers dig through the bottom of the closet, past perfect shoe boxes. There was too many people in the bus, way too many. Some kind of surprise party and his own voice sounding shocked because he was. _Hey guys, you missed the memo it was a few days ago_ but now they have cupcakes and balloons and he blows out the candles but it’s with the only air he’s got left so he  grabs his bag and has to leave while everyone else is laughing and singing and licking icing off their fingers.  His plan was to write something down about the show, sit somewhere cool and plan his next steps.

 

He’s standing on his tip toes looking through the top shelves in the closet and he finds a photo album. When it opens it’s nobody he knows. Snapshots of kids, photos from a zoo, parties, graduations.  But last night he was running away, trying to get the cold air into his lungs faster. He just kept going, until he found this bridge where there's this soft little river underneath. This might be a panic attack, so he sits down and digs through his bag until he finds the plastic orange container at the bottom.  Right now though, he’s sitting on the floor, tugging on his socks over his bare feet and wondering if Josh knows where he is. If he’ll come looking for him. Last night Josh came looking for him. He found him sitting there, on the bridge with his feet dangling off the edge and an empty bottle of Xanax.

 

It had been full, but he hadn’t taken any in a month, so he figured he had some catching up to do. He’s his twelve year old self needing some sleep out in the sunshine. Just like that he’s back in his body from last night, seeing Josh’s face asking him what’s wrong. Trying to do his own CSI investigation. He’s telling Josh in this slurred speech that there are actually two Joshes standing there and that maybe Josh I should watch out because Josh II looks like he’s gonna push the first one off the bridge. Tyler collapses over into a fit of laughter and can’t seem to get the air back into his lungs to breath. He’s boneless and can’t sit up. This is also hysterical. Josh is clearly in a panic and starts yelling to somebody that Tyler can’t see or hear.

 

He’s thinking _it’s okay to have imaginary friends, I’ve got one myself._ And in that moment he looks over and there he is, himself but not himself, Blurry sitting next to him on the bridge with his own feet hanging down. Josh is pacing around behind him, yelling still. He almost feels a sort of comfort that everyone is here when he can’t breath. _Just me and my friends._ Blurry smiles. He kicks his feet out and holds out his hand. Tyler tries to take it.

 

Then he’s not on the bridge anymore.

 

He’s back to too many people, touching him in ways he is sure he doesn’t like. Blurry is gone, so is Josh. He's alone among all these people who poke him with needles and fingertips. He’s laying flat and there are so many bumps he’s forgetting what state he’s in. Does every place in the US ignore the potholes? Or is it just the driver trying to hit them all. There’s plastic on his face but at least there’s this cold air coming in, so he gulps it down but slowly. Everything is going so slow. People are yelling at him and he wants to say that it’s not his fault the world is slacking off.  He's in the night air at some point, then back into bright white lights so blinding he shuts his eyes. Then there’s Josh’s voice cutting through every sound, cutting into the slowed time, slicing into the very sun that is burning his eyes when he tries to open them.

 

 _No allergies, no. I don’t think so. No, please. The last thing he ate, oh shit. I don’t know. Um, maybe around six? Or five? Don’t call her, just she’ll be terrified and I’m sure it was an accident and please just do something ._ Fingers clutch his, squeezing. And oh wow, Joshua saying some kinda bad word  - it must be a serious situation. _They’re gonna help, just keep breathing okay? You’ll be okay._ _You’re going to be fine. Just keep going._ He wants to roll his eyes but his lids are too heavy to even open so they stay shut and he squeezes the fingers back. It seems to convey what he wanted. _Don't give up. I'm not giving up. Don't give up_

 

Josh talked to other people, people Tyler didn’t know and he wants to sit up and laugh and tell them that this guy right here is his absolute best friend in the whole wide world so they should probably listen. Instead he stays in his own head. It’s safer there. He cracks his eyes for a half second and yes, they are one hundred percent in a hospital. He hates hospitals. He shut his eyes again and thinks of other things, like the last time he and Josh were at the lake house, or when they went skinny dipping at the YMCA a few nights ago, or that time that they were in his mom's basement.

 

Now he’s looking around the room so much he barely looks at himself. He's so stuck reliving last night he forgets about his face.  So he looks into the mirror for the first time. His eyes are red, all over. Broken blood vessel red. Throwing up all night red. His mouth is raw, his lips look like they’ve been rubbed right off his face. He’s got bruises on his right arm, bruises around his lips, bruises under his sick looking eyes. Yes, he was in a hospital last night, it wasn’t a dream. He picks a cotton ball off his arm, clinging on to a shred of paper tape. He looks at the tiny pin pricks inside his arm instead of looking in the mirror anymore. This isn’t even him. He’s not in a hospital today though. Sun peeks through a curtain throwing sunny shapes at his feet. Jenna didn’t know, which means Josh must be here somewhere. Or at least know where he is.

 

He remembers the feeling of being pushed into a car, being driven somewhere once the sun started coming up. Hearing early morning talk radio while his eyes were closed and his head was pounding. He just felt so tired and Josh was telling him that everything was okay, but he didn’t sound sure of himself. He sounded scared.

 

So where is everyone?

 

Since he doesn’t have any other options he tugs on his pants from last night. They’re disgusting. The kind of disgusting that isn’t washable, more like throw directly in the trash and pretend like you didn’t own them. He can’t even bother with his shirt, every muscle in his chest and stomach feels like it’s been put through hell week at a boot camp. He has to sit down after the effort of zipping his fly. His head swimming, himself living in the very center of a fishbowl.

 

As soon as he can he gets up and cracks the door. Just like that a smell floods the room, his stomach knots, he feels bile somewhere in his body struggling to come out , but god does it smell amazing. Creeping downstairs he feels strange, trying to be silent, trying to be observant. It looks like he’s in a house made of glass in the middle of nowhere, a dessert on every side. He creeps forward until he hears the sounds that accompany the smells. Sizzling, breathing, a rapid tapping on something, a fan whirring.

 

He peers around the corner to find Josh standing in the kitchen - sunlight pouring through the massive windows lighting him up like a Christmas tree. Nothing but gym shorts and a yellow bandana wrapped around his fluffy blond hair  Tyler tears away - afraid of being seen for some unknown reason. He tells himself it’s because he looks like shit, he’ll scare him. If that was the only truth his heart wouldn’t be pounding inside his chest.

 

When he can breath again he looks one more time. Josh is dancing around the kitchen, little plastic earbuds tucked securely into his ears. Oblivious to any intrusions. His hands are tapping a beat sporadically on the counter tops, he’s singing so softly it’s like a whisper. Tyler wishes he was louder. Wishes he could hear his voice all the way from upstairs. Wishes his voice was so loud it would drown out every sound in his mind. Wishes that of hearing himself in his mind he could just hear Josh instead all the time. It would make living so much more...bearable.

 

Josh is cooking, four pans on the stove top. The toaster is bright red, the blender is whirring some purple drink together. Realization hits him in the gut hard enough to make him double over behind the wall, sitting down on the floor to think one more time this morning. To put together an equation no mathematician can deny.

 

Tyler loves breakfast. It's his favorite meal.

 

Josh loves Tyler. Tyler is his favorite person.

 

Tyler has to love Josh back of course.

 

That’s simple arithmetic.

 

Tyler creeps back upstairs to wait for a better time to make his entrance, only he’s smiling as he heads back into the bedroom, feeling like shit, his throat a raw mess, his stomach a churning black sea. All he can hear is Josh singing. It’s a beautiful song.

 

So when Josh finally comes upstairs some time later Tyler has gotten himself back into bed, taken off his socks and pants and tried to make himself look better knowing full well that he can only do so much. He looks like he lost a fight, which he sort of did. His eyes are the worst, he can’t do much about them, the way the purple and blacks and yellows make the reds seem brighter like some creepy art instillation. When Josh opens the bedroom door and sees Tyler  awake - or alive, he’ll never know Josh’s standards - his face split into a massive smile. His eyes light up and his face brightens.

 

“Hey man, you’re up.”

 

“Y-yeah.” His voice is raw. Feels like sandpaper with every word. He hates the crack, hates the way it makes Josh’s face crumple for a second. He recovers beautifully though.

 

“Ah, well I just thought you might want something to eat after - um. “ He gets silent. His eyes can’t settle on one place.

 

“It’s f-fine. I don’t r-remember anything.” He lies. Now that he’s awake he can’t really seem to forget getting his stomach pumped. The mask on his mouth, his watering eyes, his heavy chest, his aching bones, seeing Josh panicking, a bloated stomach. Throwing up into a bucket until it ran clear and even then he couldn’t stop.  He’s getting better at lying all the time about things they want to forget.

 

“Oh, okay. Well that’s good at least.” He doesn’t buy it, but there’s a lot of things they don’t buy. It makes life easier just to accept them as they come. “We’re at my cousin’s house.”  Makes sense. “He’s out of town for now, he said we can use it.”

 

“It’s a beautiful house.”

 

“Thanks, I know.” Josh smiles like it's his own. Tyler has to smile back or at least try to, his raw lips don't want to pull up in the corners. He tries his best anyway.

 

“D-do we have a show? T-tonight?”

 

“No, thankfully.” Josh clears his throat, taking a step closer to the bed. “We’re off for two more days…”He trails off for a few minutes and looks like he wants to cry. Then his smile comes back and it _almost_ makes everything okay.

 

“I made breakfast.”

 

There’s the tray, with waffles and pancakes, bacon, and eggs. Sausage and OJ and that purple drink from the blender and even fruit. Everything is cut up into tiny little squares. So he can swallow it easier. Everything seems soft.

 

Josh loves Tyler.

 

And Tyler loves Josh.

 


	4. 09/04/2013

 

They are both drunk, which is weird. When you have the history they have it's dangerous to throw drinking into the mix, you'll never know what kind of mess you'll end up with. Normally it’s one or the other who drinks, never both at the same time.  There needs to be a DD when they go out, they never have the time, someone needs to make rational choices, they never have an empty house to drink in, or they just never are in the same mood at the same time. When you both aren't big drinker there’s not any huge rush to get drunk together on a nightly basis.

 

Tyler always thought it had to do with being like two opposite sides of the coin. It might also have to do with his steady refusal to drink excessively. Not that Josh does, it’s just that Tyler stays away from everything as much as he can. One glass of wine with dinner works. One beer at football games. Too much and he could get hung up on it. He could see it in his mind’s eye, himself needing to drink to exist. Needing to forget. It would be so much easier to just not remember anything. So he kindly refuses, the way he kindly refuses slot machines, free donuts, and pot. Plus his doctor keeps insisting he remember to take his meds, which don't mix well with alcohol. For some reason or another he's actually trying to stick to them this time, actually follow the advice he's given. It's much easier said than done.

 

But tonight they are celebrating. Vessel is doing so great, so much greater than they hoped it would do. So much better than they could have expected. It’s sort of hard to go from playing to four people in a basement to being told you were going to be opening for bands like Fall Out Boy.

 

So to celebrate Tyler showed up at Josh’s house with a bottle of MD 20/20 because he knows it’s easy to get down and a bottle of top shelf tequila because honestly why not. Tyler suggested a house party, but Josh hates those. Hates the random people coming and going, not knowing who was around and staying. Tyler kicks himself for even bringing it up because he really does know better. Every now and again he feels his teenage years rear it’s head and he tries to bite it down. So tonight it’s just the two of them with some alcohol and a rental DVD or two. Maybe the Xbox. More than likely a broken bone from jumping on the trampoline out back once they start taking shots.

 

Josh already has Taco bell set out on the table, he looks happy even though he’s back at his parent’s house. Tyler’s eyes always get hung up on the _Live, Laugh, Love_ picture in the living room. It’s the kind of his thing his mom would call cliche and tacky, but his mom thinks that decorative throw pillows you can’t actually use are a good use of money. Then he thinks that it’s weird that he’s thinking of his mom, so he holds out the grocery bag and offers a half smile instead.

 

“Would you believe they made me take off my sunglasses at the CVS today? To buy cough medication.”

 

“Huh.” Is the only response he gets as he comes inside, kicks off his shoes and takes off his jacket, shaking his head to rid it from rain. His glasses fly off and crack against the wall. Not so funny. Josh sits down on the couch, ignoring him and waiting in that stone silent way he gets sometimes.

 

"Alllrighty." Tyler manages, making his way over to the opposite end of the couch.

 

"Why were you buying cough medicine?"

 

"Have you ever tried that syrup stuff that rappers drink? The purple drink."

 

Josh pretends like he didn't hear that and Tyler laughs, kicking off his shoes and throwing them over the back of the couch and against the door.

 

"Zack's sick." He answers honestly, but he's met by that weird silence again. He just falls into the comfortable routine that they had going for a few years, movies, dinner, and silence.

 

Soon enough they’re watching National Treasure and doing shots. Ty wanted to stick to the lighter stuff, but Josh pulled out shot glasses and Tyler couldn’t say no. Nobody else was home anyway to tell them not to. Josh’s whole family piled into a camper, somewhere in the woods, probably making smores and telling PG ghost stories around a campfire.  Tyler thinks it’s weird he’s now thinking about Josh’s family so he shuts his eyes and rides the waves of inebriation that come from four shots of fireball they found in the kitchen. They were downed with three shots of tequila. His head is happily buzzing. Nicholas Cage is blurry onscreen. Soon enough though the summer heat and humidity leftover from the storm hits them and they can’t function. Shots aren’t fun if you’re too dehydrated to enjoy the buzz.

 

Of course the AC is on the fritz. That’s part of the reason his family isn’t here. Why not suffer in the heat by some green muddy pond in the woods. Tyler laughs even though it’s not funny that he’s thinking about Josh’s family again. Then he’s thinking about his own lake house with his family and the last time the two of them were there and the smile won’t come off his face. He peels off his shirt, Josh did the same only more like a half hour ago.

 

“Isn’t anywhere in this house cool? I’m leaving a butt sweat puddle dude.” Tyler states, standing up and pointing to the faint stain of sweat on the couch. He sways from side to side and his words come out in a long slurred sentence. Josh takes one look at Tyler and the couch and nods his head, swaying slightly himself.

 

Which is how they end up in the basement, in the huge room with the washer and dryer that runs under half of the house. It’s dark, and cool. They’re lying with their shirts off against the tile just looking up into the dark, Josh has some kind of trance music playing from his ipod just loud enough for the two of them. Tyler feels himself kind of floating away into the darkness of the room and it’s nice, peaceful. He can hear Josh’s breathing. It’s like a huge cave down here - or a grave. He wonders if this is what it’s like being dead. Comfortable and cool and empty. That’s how he feels, empty. A little dizzy, but blank.If he's being honest he's a lot dizzy. He probably won't remember most of this in the morning, but that's okay.

 

“Do you ever think about it?” Josh’s hand is on his wrist, touching it and Ty lets him because there is no reason to pull away from the calloused hands playing with his thin skin. No reason to move when it just feels good to have some kind of contact in the middle of this emptiness. He pictures himself as just bones. It’s calming.

 

“Think about what?” Tyler’s too slow to think about things. Anything really. This is why he doesn’t drink, because he feels like he’s swimming through jello right now. He could get used to it though. He could grow himself some gills and never come up for air and the thought terrifies him.  Josh is more used to it, but lets his mind go and his words flow out. That’s the beauty of tequila. They can make walls fall down.

 

“Hurting yourself.” Josh traces old scars, things click into place. The way he says it is like a curse. It’s hushed and afraid of repercussions. Tyler feels goosebumps pop up all over his arm as Josh's fingers cross over a deep older scar. He shivers even in the heat.

 

Tyler laughs, rolls his eyes. He wonders for a minute if he should lie, opens his mouth to tell him no, then says _yes_ instead. Damn it. Backpedal, he thinks to himself. When he opens his mouth to tell him it was a joke he says _at least once a day. Basically all the time though. Li ke if we're being honest here ._ He can hear Josh’s eyebrows furrow, his disappointment is as thick in the air as the humidity. Can hear him roll over onto his stomach on the cold floor. His fingers detaching themselves from Tyler and Ty feels almost guilty about telling the truth because it felt nice to just be touched. The goosebumps fade as soon as the contact is broken.

 

“Why? Things are going, like, good.” He can’t explain it really. Can’t tell him how there’s always this voice in the back of his head, inside his mind telling him things aren't going to be this good forever. If you quit while you're ahead it’s better than if you fall apart at the seams. He can’t tell him that he’s afraid of tearing apart everything he worked for, he can’t really explain that he’s so scared of ruining everything. So he stays quiet, but Josh knows anyway. Josh gets it. Josh has the same feelings, just not in the same ways. Same coin but two sides. The two sides never really see each other, but they're always touching, always connected.

 

Josh sits up for a moment, Tyler shuts his eyes but can hear Josh taking a swig of tequila out of the bottle, then passing it to him, he accepts and takes another drink while still laying on his back, the song fades out and another one comes on that sounds the same. Alcohol pools in the hollow spaces of his collarbones when he misses his mouth. He coughs and liquor splashes all over his chest and he feels his eyes tear up. Maybe it’s the burn in his throat or maybe it’s the conversation. The tequila does it’s job though and he swallows back what he needs to. Then Josh opens his mouth.

 

“I think I love you, man. I mean like in a purely straightforward way here.” Tyler is definitely floating now, he’s part of the darkness above him, the only light is from the cracked door and the Ipod screen.  He can’t see anything but ink. He knows this is where he agrees to his feelings but he can’t. He’s dead. That’s how he feels, like he died a few days ago and all of this coming together is just him being dead. It’s his brain’s last moments telling him that everything will be okay because his dreams are happening and he is definitely not totally going to hell in the real life time of five seconds.  He’s silent because if you are dead you don’t get to talk anymore. 

 

Josh’s voice is slurred now. “How would you do it? If you were going to, like, you know. Go.” Tyler starts to giggle, loudly. It’s totally inappropriate because Josh is totally drunk and totally serious. This is worse than having a birds and the bees talk. Tyler slings an arm over his eyes to cover them even in the darkness and from the comfort of the crook of his arm he tells Josh his fantasy. Worse than any middle school sex story or wet dream. So much more terrible than any kind of revenge dream.

 

“I already did it. I’m already dead. I’m dead now.” His voice is too high, nobody will be scared of his ghost if it sounds like a little girl. He tries again. “Booooooo” He hums, trying to deepen it. It doesn’t work. He's acutely aware of the way his throat feels when he speaks. His tongue traces all of his teeth to keep him from speaking anymore.

 

There’s this feeling in the darkness of something on top of him, pressing him into the tile. If he reached out he would feel slick skin, muscles, a body heavy and leaning down. He can feel legs on either side of his, arms besides him. It’s comforting. So what if he’s dead. Josh isn’t. He’s alive and real and warm. He’ll keep his bones safe from the worms and decay.

 

"Did you know your hair doesn't actually grow after you die, or your nails. You just get smaller so they look bigger."

 

“So how did you die?” Josh is much clearer now, he can taste his breath, when he pulls his arm away from his face he can see Josh’s eyes shining in the darkness, watching him, waiting for an answer. His lips are wet. His hair is hanging in his face. Sweat gleams off him. He’s amazing. It takes a minute for Tyler to even process his words, he’s too drunk for this kind of thing.  He shuts his eyes again. He feels a hand reach into his hair and gently tug at the roots.

 

“I hung myself.”  It’s his turn to slur his words. His lips split into a smile. It’s what he would have wanted.The hand leaves his hair and he wants to tell Josh it's not fair to stop now.

 

“Yeah?” It’s a question posed in the dark, “Who found you? Was it me?” He asks, then Tyler feels something against his neck, a hand squeezing lightly. Lips pressing down against the hollow of his throat, he can feel the slight tickle of hair against his chin. He feels somebody lap gently at the pool in his collarbone. Fingers press around his windpipe and his eyes flutter open, he gasps, laughs. It’s loud in the dark, but it fits into the night perfectly. It’s nice, this whole being dead thing is much nicer than he thought it would be. The only problem is the heat here in hell. Even the cold ground isn’t helping him from feeling like he’s on fire.

 

“Yeah, I was in my room and you came over. I was just hanging out.” Another giggle because hey, that one is funny. You only can use death jokes about your own death once right? This is his funeral. He's thankful he wore black jeans.

 

“Just hanging out?” Josh asks, who almost isn’t even Josh anymore. Just this person in the dark. It could be anyone Tyler wants it to be. “I think that might be a little to hot to handle for me.” This is absurd. Things are getting out of hand. So he closes his eyes and gives in. He tilts his head up, feeling the blood rush out his head. He loves those fingers right where they are, all this talking, this feeling, it’s like a rope but much more personal and if Josh’s hand shut suddenly, tightly Ty wouldn’t even fight him. He wants to say _tighter_ but he doesn’t want to stop this moment. Plus that would be weird right...right?

 

“Y-you’d like that?” Tyler asks, his lips pouting out as he feels more soft kisses planted all over his neck where ever Josh’s hands are not currently touching. He feels teeth bite down near his shoulder, gently but not completely soft, not without meaning behind it. He feels a nervous nod. Can sense half lidded eyes.

 

“Well almost.”

 

“Almost?”

 

“In an ideal world I’d be there, and I’d stop you. But I mean since you’re already dead you can’t say no to what I want to do to you right now. So I can touch you wherever I want, do whatever I want.”  Tyler nods in agreement to this statement, he splays his limbs out freely, he tries to hold in the urge to laugh and cry and his toes just keep twitching and he wants them to stop because he’s dead so he has to be still. “I don’t have to worry about breaking you, hurting you. I can do what I want.” His voice is husky and thick. His words are as heavy as a ton of lead. Tyler’s arms are a mess of goosebumps. His cock is aching to be touched.

 

“I can touch you here.” Josh’s fingers wrap all the way around the front of his neck, give a small squeeze and Ty feels the air leave him. Josh's fingers unwrap, and touch Ty's wrists, touching the old scars again. “Or here.” He says, bringing the skin to his lips and sucking softly, sure to leave marks against the pale pulse point. He drops Tyler’s arm back down, who lets it fall and hit against the tile under him with a graceless thump. Josh works his way down his body, leaving a wet trail from neck to hip bones.  Then his fingers ghost against the area between Ty’s legs. “Or here.” He sounds like he’s smiling.  It’s a beautiful sound.

 

“Right there.” Tyler agrees shakily as lips suck gently against his hipbone. Josh's teeth graze the skin under his navel and Tyler can't help from thrusting. That's when Josh pulls away. Tyler's hips meet nothing but air and he lets out a whine in the dark.

 

“Oh, no, no, no deadboy. That’s not how we’re playing tonight. You’re dead remember?” Ty holds in a groan, at least he tries to. It seems to come out again, his cock is straining against his zipper, desperate for attention. He's desperate for attention. "I told you I can do whatever I want. I don't have to care about hurting you, or care about touching you if I don't want to." He slurs parts of his words but Tyler understands it perfectly. He reaches down to touch himself instead and his hands get swatted away. "Dead people don't move." Josh says, a bit more forcefully that he probably could have while sober.

 

“This sucks.” He pants as Josh’s fingers lightly trace the bulge in his pants."I mean really, majorly sucks. In a totally unfair way." He's all breathless while Josh just runs his fingertips up and down his legs.

 

“Maybe, I mean you’re dead. You don't get to say what sucks or doesn't suck. I mean look at me, this guy I wanna get with just offed himself, how would I feel. I mean unless you don’t want to be dead anymore. 'Cause I’m not really into necrophilia. So I mean, you can let me save you, or else I might just have to call the county morgue.” Tyler groans again, only Josh could ruin everything so much and keep him so frustratingly hard.

 

“I hate you so much.”

 

“I know, now tell me you’re not dead.” Ty nods reluctantly, pushing his hips out, Josh just presses his hands down on Tyler's thighs. “No, tell me.”

 

“I’m not dead,” it’s all breathless and flustered sounding because it’s hard to make any kind of sense with no blood left in his body. If Josh asked him to swear he was Abraham Lincoln he would right now. “You saved me, please just keep going.” He hears his zipper come undone.

 

Josh laughs, not a giggle, but a real laugh, the vibrations against Tyler’s thigh send him back into twitching. “You’re so easy.”  Tyler’s fingers make two tight fists. He can’t help but fire back at that one.

 

“So is this how they’re teaching kids nowadays to do mouth to mouth resuscitation. I mean, I gotta say it’s effective, but it’s not really mouth to mouth now is it?” Josh's warm wet mouth is on him in seconds and Tyler has to swallow back any words he had resting in his mouth. His stomach is a mess, his leg won't stop shaking. He moans into the back of his hand as Josh swallows his length almost expertly. He pulls away for a second, pressing himself against Tyler's leg - he can feel a matching hardness there. 

 

“You are so lucky I’m here to save you.” Josh murmurs into his inner thigh.

 

“You’re the worst.” Is his reply, he can’t hide the sound of a smile in his voice. He runs his fingers through dyed blue hair and tries to still himself with no actual success.

 

“I know.”  And this is almost alright. Just two guys in a basement, celebrating a career success. Nothing weird about anything. Ty closes his eyes. In the dark he can imagine that this person is anybody in the world. He can picture anything is happening. He shuts his eyes tightly, holds all of his air inside his lungs and pictures that it’s Josh between his legs doing exactly what he’s doing right this second.


	5. 05/06/2012

Josh didn’t seem to get the memo that nobody was suppose to be in the car, because here he was, holding himself and shivering in front of Ty’s shitty car at three am. His eyes were red, his hair sticking straight up in spots.  It was a problem, a big problem. The kind of problem that stood over five feet tall and had bright blue hair. The kind of problem that bounced from foot to foot looking at Tyler with huge brown eyes trying to figure out why the car was locked.

 

“Seriously?” Tyler asked one more time, Josh only yawned and scratched his nose.

 

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm getting these vibes you want me to get thrown through a windshield when your brother breaks for flea markets. I mean I could be wrong, but that's what I'm feeling." Josh was met with stony silence, Tyler narrowed his eyes and tried to throw daggers towards Josh who only seemed to bounced faster, rubbing his arms through his thin jacket. It looked like he was trying to set himself on fire with pure friction.

 

“Come on man, what do you want me to do? Sit on the drums? It’s not happening for this long of a drive, maybe if we were going down the road.”

 

Honestly Tyler didn’t care where Josh sat as long as it wasn’t in his car. He had plans, and the first rule of the plan was that nobody was going to be in his car but him.

 

Tyler had asked to drive to the show by himself. Wanted to meet Josh there, but his plan was never to actually arrive. It was his third attempt this year, at least in his mind it would be at least an attempt. At best it would be wildly successful, but then hey - it wouldn't be an 'attempt'. It was just over a ten hour drive to North Carolina. Nobody would think it was intentional if he fell asleep at the wheel. All he would have to do is close his eyes and take his hands off the wheel and then let nature do what nature did. If he couldn’t commit he had benadryl in the glove box. Easy to explain, but something that always made him doze off after an hour or so. His plan was to pop it in around nine am or so. Give everyone enough time to do a fifteen minute mourn so they could still get to the show on time. He thought  for weeks about his face melding with pavement as everyone else drove away from the smoking wreck that had been his life. He didn't want to make anyone late.

 

He had talked to Josh for just about two days about all this, not the falling asleep at the wheel thing, but the idea that Tyler would drive the car down with all the clothes and the keyboard and the second drum kit in the trunk. Josh would bring down the van with all the other stuff they needed. Mandatory stuff, ukes and a bass guitar and the real drum setup. Mark would ride with Josh. Tyler would be alone in the car with the stuff that didn’t really need to make it to the show. He had the spares, the backups, the junk. He talked to Josh until they went over every single hiccup they could think of. He answered any questions Josh pitched at him. Tyler put on his best used car salesman smile and sold the plan as best he could until Josh finally had to admit it made sense to take two cars. Even though Josh watched Tyler like a hawk these days, especially lately he shrouded his real plans in total secrecy.

 

 _Besides_ , Tyler would say to end the conversation, _we always do it like this. I mean sometimes we ride with Mark, sometimes you guys ride with me, but if we're going this far we should bring everything just in case. Do you really wanna get stuck in the South without a snare drum?_  

 

He had felt a little bit of guilt for the whole idea of going out before a show, but nobody was really there to see him anyway.  That was part of the issue, was he could be replaced. Not so much an issue as this idea, just another idea inside his mind reinforced by his mini-me who wasn’t so mini anymore. Anyone really could take his spot and it wouldn’t make much of a difference. It was always about the music, the lyrics, the thought behind the song and less about the person conveying the message. So that was the plan. Josh was going to drive the van, Tyler the car. Mark would ride with Josh. Tyler and his car would end up in a ditch, hopefully flipped over and on fire and melted into a metallic clump. Tyler said a little prayer for commuters that day, hoping they wouldn't be too late for work. Life would move on the way it always did. Things would be fine.

 

Then Zack asked to join, Tyler said no. It would throw everything off, now somebody would be riding with him. When Mark and Josh said yes at the last minute Tyler had no idea he'd even been overruled. Then when they were suppose to leave at three am this morning Josh had just showed up with the van and handed the keys off to Zack, with Mark sitting in the passenger seat. Josh wanted to ride with Tyler, said driving the rusty van that far was asking for trouble. Zack was fine with it. Mark was fine with it. Tyler was furious. He hadn’t slept at all the night before, hoping it would make his eyes even more tired, even more willing to shut by themselves. Josh just stood there in the misty early morning rubbing his arms and bouncing from foot to foot.

 

“Besides, Ty’s gonna get tired,” Josh looked like he almost understood the plans, then looked away. “I can switch out with him after a few hours.” He knew something, that stupid telepathic nonsense. Ty could remember Josh putting his hands on his forehead a few days ago. Telling him in that soft way he had that _I know you’re sad, but we’ll get through it ._ Ty laughed, but in the dark, in his driveway with Josh tugging open the passenger side door to his shitty loaded up car he felt like he’d never laugh again. He wanted to scream at Josh. _How many times are you going to do this to me?_ He knew what Josh would say back though, _as many times as I have to._

 

So what was the point?

 

Which is how Josh ended up in the passenger seat, his legs spread across the dashboard, his head tilted against the window, eyes shut, his jacket pulled over him like a blanket. Tyler would catch himself looking at the big stupid idiot with mermaid looking hair sitting there, just ruining his life. The way the interstate lights came down through the windshield lit his hair up to show off the greys, the blues, the aquas and greens of various degrees. Then he'd tear his eyes off Josh and focus on the road trying to see red. Every so often a slight bump would cause him to twitch in his sleep, and Tyler swore he would drive more carefully. He shook his head, this was suppose to be a death trip, this was suppose to be the last sunrise he ever saw. This was suppose to be it, but Josh ruined it. Josh ruined absolutely everything.

 

He actually felt his eyelids getting heavy, it was only seven but they’d already been on the road for hours and all he had was a banana and half a diet coke. This was the part of his plan where he would shut his eyes and go to sleep, but then he would look over at Josh and want to scream instead. Why couldn’t he just be in the van like he was suppose to be. Why did he have to sense when things were wrong. Ty put his own hand to his forehead, pushing his hair out of the way feeling for any bumps, any kind of misalignment in his skull. How could Josh know just by  touching him that something was wrong. He felt around, trying to dig into his skull.  Then it hit him, it had nothing to do with the touch and everything to do with Josh.

 

It was just how Josh knew things,could look in his eyes and know that he wanted to drive his car off the turnpike. He still had no idea why he wouldn’t let him go. Could he just let go for once, loosen his grip long enough to just let him slip away. It would only take a few seconds, just a break from being the watchdog.

 

No, that wasn’t going to happen, Josh was always going to be the midnight phone call, he was always going to be the guy who showed up with ice cream at your house when your parents left for the weekend. He would always be the guy who got into the car first so you weren't alone. Not for a single second. So he pulls over into a rest stop. He gets out, walks around for a few minutes, watching the red sky turn orange around him. The air smells like fall even though it’s the complete opposite.  Things could be worse, he thinks watching a kid run around in the grass with her dog, a family sitting on a bench in the morning dew just watching them. He cracks his knuckles and heads to the vending machines. He finds one that has OJ and coffee, so he gets a plain black for Josh and juice for himself for later. Heading back to the car he gets back into the driver seat, sitting for a moment and thinking about how he should be dead right now instead of watching the sky change colors in front of him. As much as he hates doing it he reaches over and shakes Josh’s leg who sits up pulling his legs down and smacking his foot against the door in the process. Somehow his shoelace gets stuck. He struggles half asleep until Tyler hears a soft rip.

 

“Yeah, no I’m awake.” He starts, his eyes look red, even still he seems a bit more rested than Ty himself, who feels the space under his eyes puffing up. “What’s wrong? Something happen? Where are we?” Tired Josh has no psychic abilities to him.  This would be a good time to try but Josh doesn't sleep often. Ty puts on a tired grin.

 

“Not sure, I think we crossed into Virginia? Maybe we're just done with Pennsylvania? Switch?” He holds out the coffee as an offering, Josh accepts and pulls a sleepy smile from nowhere.He sips the coffee and sighs his contentment before springing back into action.

 

“Oh yeah man, sure.” Josh jumps out of the car, leaving his hoodie on the seat and only stopping to hit his funny bone of the side mirror. Tyler just crawls over the center console and curls up on himself. Hating the inside of his mind for screaming, but it’s muffled. As soon as they pull out of the stop and start driving on the highway again, the car becomes a quiet cocoon as Tyler tips his head into the same spot Josh’s was. The spot is still warm, he wraps his arms around himself tighter, the hoodie pulled up over him like a blanket.

 

This boy has stopped every single thing Tyler has tried. Maybe there’s something to him after all. He’s humming something that sounds vaguely like my heart will go on - but that’s probably just Tyler imagining things. He smells Josh in the jacket, strands of blue hair cling to the sleeves. Somewhere in the hood he spots a leftover piece of green hair. His eyes shut while watching the road pass under them. His last thought before he nods off in the safety of the passenger seat is that he’s never imagined his guardian angel would have gauges.


	6. 02/16/2011

He never thought the text would come, not once in his life did he expect it to happen during a snowstorm in the middle of February, but not the weather or Josh’s mood seem to stop the text from coming through. He’s wrapped up in his blanket on his bed in his apartment watching the Weather Channel about the snow outside when his phone buzzes on the table next to him. The sound is enough to shock him back to reality and away from the television.   


 

_ Hey, it's Tyler. House party. Tomorrow, starts at eight. I need a drummer. _

 

Josh stares at the phone like he's never seen a text before. First thought is that this is not real. Tyler is not a tangible being that texts. He’s not some kind of person who communicates with other people, especially through a cell phone. Tyler’s the kind of guy who communicates to a person in conversation, in real life, in person. Therefore this has to be somebody messing with him. 

 

But it’s not. It’s Tyler, and Josh just knows it. He knows it just because of the way this random number introduces himself as just Tyler, as if there's only one in the whole world. It's like the text is just brighter on his phone than any other texts he's ever gotten. It has to be the one and only Tyler Joseph, as if he could send part of himself through the characters on a pocket sized screen. He’s been going to his shows for the past few months, he’s learned all the songs, he’s at the barricade almost every time. This is the very same person that he loves and admires and gave out his number to for no reason at all other than because he’s seen him a bunch of time but never really talks to. This is the same Tyler that just told him to come to his party and drum for him. Out of the blue.   


 

Josh wants to say no, just to see what would happen. He knows he never would. Josh wants to say no but he can’t really say no anyway because Tyler doesn’t ask him a question. It’s just sentences.  Why did he ever give him his number? Why did he ever tell him he knew a bunch of the songs - looking for approval like some kind of puppy. In this moment he hates himself more than anything in the world. His fingers find a container of leftover candy conversation hearts from a few days ago and he tugs open the box, letting the hard sugar spill into his hand. The first heart says _Call Me._ He shoves it into his mouth as quickly as he can as he pulls his blanket closer to his body and tries to look at the TV to see the snow piling up in parking lots around the state. It’s up to the bottom of the windows of the Taco Bell the next town over.The second heart he touches says _I love you._ He throws that one directly in the trash.   


 

Josh unwraps himself and chews on his lip until he feels like he’s tugging the ring out of it. He looks at the phone, then the clock. It’s been ten minutes since the text came through. Should he reply. Should he let it go and say he never even got it? Outside the snow is coming down in a thick white mass, covering the world until it’s so soft it couldn’t possibly hurt him the way his insides hurt him right now. He’s pacing. He’s wondering if all the people in that Taco Bell are doing okay. 

 

Twenty minutes pass. He never thought Tyler would text him at all, not after the last show, when he could swear Tyler saw him in the crowd standing there at the foot of the stage mouthing the lyrics and then Tyler just almost seemed to sneer at him, like  _ yeah I’m here, and you’re down there . _ He wants to shut off his mind and just let his fingers work, because those lyrics still mean a lot to him. He still knows most of the songs, can play them almost perfectly. When he shuts his eyes he can see Tyler’s face, just the way he looks at him. How can he get out of this. He doesn’t want to, but he wants to at least pretend to try.

 

_I don’t have a setup. _ Perfect. How can he play if he doesn’t have drums? It's not even a lie, he just plays with the ones at Guitar Center. He couldn't afford his own drum kit. He's lucky he can afford the light bill. At some point he’s turned down the TV so all he can hear is that static of it in the room. There’s a soft white noise that comes with snow squalls in the dead of winter at night. A hushed kind of storming sound. Besides what happened to the other drummer anyway. He thinks of Tyler’s twitching fingers and sneer and thinks maybe the old drummer is buried in his backyard under a gazebo or something. He’s gotta lay off the American Horror Story.  His phone buzzes again. It's only been three minutes since he sent his text.   


 

_ I have a spare. Do you know where the lake house is?  _ Finally a question. Josh lets the air settle into his lungs for a few minutes, closes his eyes and tunes out the dim hum of the TV, his mind blanks on the sounds of the storm, he thinks again of a gazebo near a lake and wonders if the drummer grave is big enough for two. 

 

_ No. Sorry .   
_

 

Deep breaths. Buzz. Then there’s an address. Buzz. Here come instructions to this lake house that Tyler’s family never even uses but sits up there vacant for most of the year - even in the summer. In his blind pacing he slams his left foot of the edge of the TV stand but it barely registers. He feels like an idiot when he asks the next question anyway. Mostly because he’s never been to an official house party, so is it like a regular party? He’s only seen keg parties on TV and he highly doubts that’s what it’s going to turn into.  For some reason he thinks those don’t even exist. How does one even get a keg? His mouth tastes like stale sugar and his hands are shaking as he holds his phone.   


 

_ Do I need to wear/bring anything special? I know you guys had that outfit thing going on. _

 

Nice going, Joshua - he thinks, knowing how smooth that must have sounded. He hopes the last line deflected what he really meant, aka : what the hell do I do? He didn’t even put the phone down when he gets another text. He doesn't even think he could put the phone down, the sweat on his fingers seem to melt the plastic to his hand.   


 

_ Nothing special. _

 

Buzz.

 

_Business casual. _

 

Buzz.

 

_Bring some chips or drinks or something._

 

Buzz.

 

_Please Joshua, I'm counting on you._

 

 

Josh takes a deep breath, yes he can do this.

  
  


\\\\\\\\\\\

  
  


He spends three hours that night on google. First he googles the address Tyler gave him. Mapquest tells him that yes; that address leads to an actual lake house. It will take about sixty seven minutes to get there from downtown. He memorizes the route. Then he googles business casual. He tears apart his closet for what seems like forever. For the last hour he googles obituaries to make sure the rest of the band is still alive and not dead or reported missing. So far Chris isn’t missing; which is a good thing. Google Earth shows that there is no gazebo on the lake house property. At least not yet. 

  
  


\\\\\\\\\\\

 

It stopped snowing around four am. Josh would know, since he’s sitting in his blanket on the front steps of his apartment complex, unable to sleep, eating conversation hearts, digging his feet into the white piles and tugging out strands of his curly dark hair. 

  
  


||||||

  
  


He ends up at the lake house around seven thirty and although Tyler promised that it started at eight there are already at least thirty cars parked haphazardly around snowbanks in the woods. Nobody is around in other houses and it takes Josh's breath away to realize all these people are here just for Tyler. Nobody is even remotely dressed like he is, dark plain jeans, a button up with an oversized suit coat, a bowtie. Everyone else is in jeans and tees. He _feels_ like an asshole standing on the doorstep watching people through the window while he plays with his grocery bag filled with Lays and Bud Light. His drums sticks poke into his back from his back pocket cementing the though int his mind that he truly is the asshole here. His face has been red since he saw the house. He's unsure if he should just walk in, so he waits and counts to one hundred inside his head and hopes at one - oh - one he'll wake up back in his bed under his covers with a Slap Chop infomercial playing on his TV. This all has to be a nightmare right?  


 

Tyler comes out before he can turn around and head back the four miles to the closest bus stop. His face feels hot whenever anyone looks at him, but when Tyler looks at him, giving him a good up and down glance  he feels like he’s engulfed in flames. He doesn’t even think he rang the doorbell, he’s just been standing there waiting for something to happen. This is the most mortifying thing in his life.

 

“What happened to Chris?” He asks instead of hello, words spilling out so quickly Tyler tilts his head to the side trying to process what he just heard.   


 

“What happened to you?” Tyler asks, he’s wearing a short sleeved shirt, jeans, Vans. He looks rested like he wasn’t up for the past twenty four hours freaking out about everything that could go wrong. “I mean you look good, man. Great even. I like the - “ He motions to the bowtie. Josh wants to die. He wraps the plastic handle of the bag around his fingers so tightly that he hopes they fall off. The blood leaves them and then maybe he could just go home with a real excuse. He wants to walk into the lake and let the case of cheap beer drag him down as deep as it can like a ton of rocks. He doesn’t do any of those things though. He just stands there, looking at Tyler, and Tyler  just stands there looking at him.   


 

“Yeah, thanks. So Chris?” He’s been looking for a disturbed pile of snow around here but can’t seem to find one that would indicate anything other than drunk college kids parking like teenagers with permits. Nothing that looks like it’s been dug up, but he wouldn’t know until the world thaws out. 

 

“Chris is just with his family. Having a hard time lately.” His face seems like he knows what Josh is thinking, he steps out of the doorway, giving Josh room to come inside. Josh makes no motion to move. “You’re more than welcome to call him, or the cops. Whichever really.” Tyler's eyes sparkle and Josh hates him almost as much as he hates himself in that second.   


 

Josh’s face turns a deeper red, his ears burning, his eyes looking at the floor. 

 

“No, thanks. I believe you.” 

 

“Really Joshua, you’re like a book. Too easy.” Tyler winks and it’s filled with flirtation and mocking and sarcasm in one quick second. “But really I’m thinking if tonight goes well maybe you can help us out a little bit, if you don’t think I’m a dangerous murderer of course.” Josh watches Tyler's fingers twitch once against the door frame.   


 

“Yeah, maybe.” Tyler won’t stop looking at him and Josh wants to tell him that no, thank you. He’s never going to be doing  _ this _ again. Nobody ever has looked at him the way Tyler is looking at him now though, so he just stands there without saying anything and waits. He’s still holding the plastic bag, people move around the two of them like they don’t even exist. 

 

“Okay, so how about, if you’re not going to call the cops you come on in, let’s get you set up with my kit.”  Now it’s way too late for Josh to run back to the bus stop, so he walks inside and out of the cold.

 

\|/\|/\|/

  
  


Josh was nervous about leaving wet footprints on the carpet that costs more than anything in his apartment, but Tyler tells him not to worry about it as he leads him around the house. Tyler has the drums set up in a bedroom upstairs because there’s a band playing in the living room downstairs. That’s where most of the people are, hanging around the fireplace and the band or in the kitchen.  It’s not a keg party, but there are about ten different cases of beer on the counter tops. The alcohol cabinet is cracked open and some guy with purple hair is mixing drinks. Josh grabs a red cup filled with god knows what and follows Tyler up the stairs. He’s dropped off his own bag of cheap beer next to an open bottle of champagne and thinks that he shouldn’t have brought anything at all. One of Tyler’s brothers is sitting at the dining room table drinking wine that was bottled 30 years before he was born. Josh wants to puke but he doesn't - but only just barely.

  
  


“Here it is. Nothing special. Just you know, a standard set up.” Tyler says, cracking the bedroom door. “I’ll let you get settled, this is what we’re playing tonight.” He says, handing over a post it note with such tiny writing that Josh has to squint to make out the songs. He’s lucky he knows them all. There’s even a cover he thinks he can fumble through. “I’ll let you two get acquainted.” Tyler winks at the drums “If you need anything just come find me, if not I’ll be back in a bit.” Then he’s gone, shutting the door behind him. Once Tyler is gone it's hard to believe he was there at all.   


 

Josh shrugs out of his jacket and takes out his drumsticks, looks at the set then sits on the bed instead. He puts out a hand and touches the drum kit, this is the spare, the extra kit he keeps locked away up here to be used twice a year, if that. Josh would die if he could just have one shitty setup to have as his own. That would be all he wants. He takes a sip of whatever is in his cup, it tastes like pineapples and lemonade. He shudders because even though it tastes disgusting it tasted like _high quality_.  Not watered down lemonade mix with cheap vodka. It tastes like high shelf. He sets it down on the dresser next to him. 

 

He’s looking around the room, playing with his drumsticks, taping them off his knees. This has to be Tyler’s room, he can tell just by what’s left in here. It’s like the forgotten parts of him, there’s a band shirt under the corner of the bed  - Underoath from the 2007 tour. One red sock shoved behind the dresser. There’s a poster for the Birds near the closet, a medal for middle school baseball dangling off the mirror. If he looked at it it would be engraved with Tyler R Joseph.

 

He hates everything about this. He’s always wanted to be a drummer, and this band, god he loves them. This is like a fever dream though. He knows how they put on a show. He knows how Tyler’s going to perform. He knows he can’t match up. He wishes Chris was here and he was still home, wrapped up in a blanket with Taco Bell and an X-files marathon. 

 

He can hear the other band playing downstairs, can feel the way the floor shakes slightly. He can see the snow falling off the tree branches, sees a bird fly past the window in the dark. The next thing he knows the window is open and he’s outside, climbing onto the roof just so he’s not in the hot house anymore. He feels guilty sitting there on the bed, picking apart this guy he doesn't know but somehow feels some weird connection to. He called it love before, love for his music and his band and his attitude. Love for the lyrics. Love for the stage. Love for somebody who was the complete opposite of himself.   


 

He doesn’t think he could be a part of that though, it’s magical. It’s one thing to be a drummer for your friends when nobody looks or knows or watches, it’s another to step up and become something greater than yourself. He thinks over Tyler’s words,   _I’m thinking if tonight goes well maybe you can help us out a little bit._ Is that an offer? A promise? A threat? His chest feels tight and he’s sitting on the slanted shingles watching the frozen surface of the lake. The moon is full on the ice. He has no idea how long he’s out there but then he hears a noise from inside, the cracking of a window. It must have shut behind him. He’s far too unconcerned about being locked out than he probably should be. 

 

“Hey, are you okay?”  It’s Tyler, of course. Why would it be anybody else? Josh is quiet. “Too much too soon? It’s just a small party.” Josh wants it to sound condescending, wants to hear a sneer in his voice like what he imagined at the last show but there’s nothing like it now. Even _his_ mind can’t make it up.  He stays silent thinking Tyler will go away with his short sleeved shirt and stupid Vans and his dumb eyes that can stare a hole through a person. But he doesn’t.

 

He climbs out of the window and sits on the roof too.  He’s all awkward limbs getting from the window to the shingles, but it’s an almost practiced awkwardness. The kind an actor would have in a coming of age movie. How many times has Tyler done this? It strikes Josh for the millionth time how little he really knows about Tyler.

 

“Hey, I’m sorry about this.”

 

“Sorry?” Josh finally manages after a few moments, because Tyler actually sounds apologetic and no matter what Josh thinks, he knows that this is _all_ him. All his mind trying to ruin him, force him away from the things he loves to do. He knows it’s this big ugly knot inside his mind tying him down. This isn’t about Tyler, this is about him. This is about anxiety and fear and ruining your own life because you can’t live how you want to live. Tyler, well he’s just in the way. He's one big anxiety colored speed bump that instead of going around Josh tried to go over. Now it's not Tyler's fault he's bottoming out.   


 

“Yeah, about making you come. I just thought after the last time I saw you and you said you knew all the songs and gave me your number…” He trails off letting the rest of his words get eaten by the cold air. “You know, we can just sit here all night. Tell them to forget we ever lived.” His breath turns into white clouds.   


 

Josh laughs, imaging Tyler walking downstairs to tell them to go home, the show is cancelled. Coming back up with a blanket and hot chocolate and sitting on the roof until the sun comes up and they have pick icicles from their eyelashes. 

 

“What’s funny?” Tyler asks, completely serious. Josh finally looks over and yes Tyler is still wearing that stupid short sleeved shirt, sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest and holding himself in the cold. His feet tap a nervous beat. Goosebumps cover every inch of his skin.   


 

“You wouldn’t cancel. You love getting up there, you...you have no idea how I feel.” Josh lets it come out because even with that tight knot trying to choke him there’s nothing left to lose.

 

“Let me guess, scared?”

 

“Yeah, but you know what - that’s just it. It’s a guess.” There’s a bite in his voice he doesn’t really mean, but it still happens. He’s still holding his drumsticks and he taps them on his knees again trying not to shiver in the winter air.

 

“You don’t think I’m terrified every time I go up in front of anybody?” This gives Josh a pause for a few seconds, and he looks back over. Instead of seeing his mind’s eye of Tyler, the one performing on stage, the one who screams into the microphone with everything he has, the one who stands up on his piano and jumps off into the crowd. He sees the real Tyler, for the first time. It’s this tiny looking scared kid, sitting with his knees shaking against his chest. His eyes are still that fierce stare that drills through Josh but it’s different. It wavers a little. His lip quivers, it could be the cold or something else. It could be a confession.

 

“Listen, I know you think I have everything you could ever want. And I do probably. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that you don’t know me or you don’t know how good I have it, but there are other things going on too. There’s other parts of my life you don’t know.That you don’t see. You don’t know my mind that way I don’t know yours. All I know is that I’ve seen you play and you are a kick ass drummer and I would be honored to have you play tonight. I would be thrilled if we could get off this roof, but if you want to stay here I’ll stay here too. All night. “  Josh sighs and lets the words in.  _ I’ve seen you play.  _ His heart is acting all weird about that line so he picks apart the other words in his mind, chooses which to keep filed away and which to question now.

 

“Why would you stay here with me? I’m just this dumbass sitting on your roof ruining your party.”

 

“Alright Joshua Dun, you are not ruining my party.” He says it sarcastically, but not in a way that hurts, more in a way that makes Josh crack a smile. “The girl that’s currently getting knocked up in my mom’s bedroom is the one ruining my party.” Tyler looks at him with a genuine smile, then it falters. “I mean unless you’re in two places at once and you’re the one getting come stains on her sheets. Then I’d be a little pissed.”

 

“Disgusting, man.”

 

“Second - I would stay with you because I don’t know but I just have this feeling about you. Like we click or something. I wanna know you, and I want you to know me and understand I’m not just this entitled dickflute that you think I am. I don’t know, you can call me crazy, wouldn’t be the first or last time, but there’s this thing about you that I think I have to attach myself too. You’re like this special person. Like with a capital P. Maybe even a capital S. But even if you weren’t a Special Person I’d stay because nobody should have to sit on a roof alone in the middle of the winter in Ohio. If you’re forcing yourself away like that something is wrong and you shouldn’t be alone because you’ll think too much and then you’ll do something stupid. I know a lot about stupid shit and thinking way too much.”

 

“Tyler Joseph?”

 

“Yes Joshua Dun?”

 

“You talk way too much.”

 

And they laugh, both of them, a real laugh.

 

“You’ll get used to me I’m sure.” His laugh is so high pitched it’s like it’s coming from a bird. It's absolutely musical and Josh's heart does that weird thing again. “So will you come in and play tonight?” Josh looks at Tyler, feels that weird connection again. When Tyler called him a Special Person it was like there was that fire again, but it was just inside his chest this time. Just a nice warmth instead of burning everywhere.

 

“Yeah, I will.”  Tyler manages to get up without falling off the roof, climbing through the window with the skill of a man who’s had to sneak out that way multiple times over his teenage years. Then Josh stops, maybe it wasn’t sneaking out; maybe it was just coming to sit here and think and watch the water at night and be alone. He reaches out and grabs Josh’s hand to help him back into the room, but Josh’s feet in his stupid fancy shoes get stuck on the icy windowsill and they fall backwards onto Tyler’s bed.  It’s awkward and warm and terrible and lovely all at once. They both laugh like lunatics. When Tyler stops laughing, underneath Josh’s nearly shaking form, it's so sudden it makes Josh stop.   


 

“Josh.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I hope that’s a drumstick in your pocket.” Josh pulls out one of the wooden sticks, waving it in Tyler’s face for a second. 

 

They roll off the bed in a fit of giggles, like girls at a sleepover.

 

When they finally get up they are late to their own set by thirty minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it guys! I had a ton of fun writing this, I hope you liked it!!!


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